


Unsteady

by asexualgansey



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Brief swearing, Gansey knows, M/M, aka I hate myself, between bllb and trk probably, i didn't know what to rate this, kind of, so I said teen, timing is iffy but that's ok, why did i do this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-04
Updated: 2016-02-04
Packaged: 2018-05-18 03:38:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5896660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asexualgansey/pseuds/asexualgansey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gansey disappears from the campaign party at his parents'. Adam looks for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unsteady

By the time Adam realized that Gansey was missing, he was already bored out of his mind.

Helen Gansey was going on and on and on about her new job in Washington DC, and while he  _liked_   Helen well enough, he didn't think he could stand another second of her telling him about board meetings and business deals. She was ecstatic, and he was happy for her, but by then he had realized that Gansey was nowhere in the sea of suits, and was glad for the excuse to leave.

"I'm sorry, Helen," he said, craning his neck. "I need to go find Gansey." He tried not to feel guilty for the way her dark pink glossed lips thinned. Helen was just as alone in this blur of high heels and political talk as Adam and Gansey were. Just in a different way.

"Go ahead," Helen said, trying to feign indifference. "Find Dick." Adam turned on his heel and, squeezing between two elderly Republicans, managed to escape into the hallway.

He didn't think that Gansey's absence was anything urgent; taking space from his mother's constituents was a common and necessary part of the life of Richard Campbell Gansey III. Adam knew that Gansey was probably back in his room, flipping through his journal in an impossible attempt to find some connection that he hadn't made yet with the information they already had. Or maybe he had slipped out to call Ronan, to make sure than Monmouth hadn't burnt to the ground during their absence. 

So, Adam set off at a slow, meandering pace, giving him some time to release the tension that came from being surrounded by the people who he both despised and envied. These trips with Gansey were always a mix of yearning and disgust, a strange emotion that he had improved his handling of.

He wandered the exquisitely decorated hallways, poked his head through a few doors on his way to Gansey's room to make sure that he didn't miss him: the kitchen, the library, Dick II's office. Helen's room, the guest room Adam was staying in. After double checking the kitchen, Adam was sure that his destination was Gansey's bedroom.

The door was closed, as it usually was, so Adam knocked.

There was no answer, which wasn't unusual. Gansey was probably at his desk, bent over the journal or his laptop. Maybe with music in. He knocked again, louder.

"Gansey?" he called. He opened the door, squinting at the complete darkness of the room. He fumbled for the light switch next to the door, flicking it on to be greeted by an empty room. Gansey had clearly been here; his computer was sitting open on the bed, the books were in a different order on the floor than when he and Adam had sat there that morning, flipping through books they could have recited by now.

Adam retreated, turning off the light and feeling the beginnings of worry washing over him. Well, not that  _beginnings_ was right, exactly. Adam was always worried about Gansey. He was just usually sure that his worry was misplaced.

He walked down a few hallways, double checking that he hadn't missed Gansey somehow. He ducked into Mrs. Gansey's office and grabbed the phone sitting on her desk, dialing the number for Nino's. One of the managers picked up, some kid named Donny or Danny, and Adam waited while Blue was located.

"Yeah?" she gasped into the phone, sounding like she'd just run across the restaurant. "Adam?"

"Has Gansey called you?" he asked. He tried to keep his voice level. There was nothing to worry about. It was a big house.

"No," she said. "Was he supposed to?"

"No," Adam said, too quickly. He could picture Blue cocking her head, pursing her lips as she realized that something was off. He tried not to think too hard about it. It made him think about Gansey pretending not to stare at Blue's lips while Adam pretended not to stare at Gansey's, all the while aware of Ronan's gaze on him.

"Adam..." Blue began, but something caught her attention. He heard the crackle of her covering the receiver with her hand, muffled shouting.

"I have to go," Blue said, sounding distracted. "Talk to you later?"

"Yeah," he said as she hung up. "Talk to you later."

He stepped back out into the hallway, leaning up next to one of the sets of glass doors that opened out onto the magnificently groomed back lawn, now covered in a fine dusting of snow.

He heard a faint tinkling noise.

Adam pressed his forehead to one of the doors, peering through the glare of the interior lights on the glass. He saw a figure silhouetted against the darkness, lit by the snow and the moon, arms stretched out, head flung back. The figure swayed on their feet slightly, their arms trembling slightly.

Gansey?

Adam pushed the door open, trying not to flinch at the cold air. Gansey stood at the edge of the patio, staring up at the sky. His suit jacket and tie were discarded in the snow behind him.

"Gansey?" Adam said, stepping forward. Something crunched under his foot and he glanced down to see a shattered glass bottle, leaking clear liquid in a half-frozen mess on the ground.

 Gansey didn't move. "Adam," he said. There was something off about his tone. This wasn't Aglionby Gansey, or Dick Gansey III. But this wasn't the Gansey who so desperately searched for Glendower, either. This was more like the Gansey who took the bomb from Kavinsky without flinching, but also the Gansey who thought he was going to be stung to death in Jesse Dittley's cave. Adam had seen many Ganseys, but he wasn't sure if he'd seen this one before.

"Have you been drinking?" Adam asked finally.

Gansey did turn at this, dropping his hands to his sides with twin thumps and spinning around to face Adam. His eyes were wide and his face flushed, from the cold and from the alcohol that rolled off his breath.

"C'mon, Gansey," Adam said. "This is Ronan's thing."

Gansey acted like he hadn't heard Adam. "Helen is in there blabbering about her job, isn't she?"

Adam shifted on his feet, both from discomfort with this situation and from the cold. He didn't know how to talk to this Gansey.

"Yeah, she is," he said. "Why?"

"She seems happy, doesn't she?" Gansey asked. His gaze bore into Adam's, urgent, a little scared, a little angry.

"Yeah," Adam said. "She does. Let's get you inside, okay?"

He turned around, hoping Gansey would follow. He'd take Gansey back to his room, let him sleep this off. They could talk about why he was getting drunk in his parents' backyard in the morning.

"Adam," Gansey said. Adam heard him stumble forward, wrap a hand tightly around Adam's bicep. Gansey's fingers dug into the muscle painfully, pleading.

Adam turned back around. Gansey was unsteady on his feet, his face pressed closed to Adam's. Adam could smell tequila on his breath. He was pretty sure that Gansey had never had tequila in his life.

"Adam," Gansey whispered. "I've ruined everything."

"Don't be stupid, Gansey," Adam said, and flinched. Saying stuff like that was what usually started their fights. One would accuse the other of being stupid about something, anything. Money. The search for Glendower. Ronan. And then it spiraled and they'd be back at the point when they were each terrified that what they'd said was unforgivable.

But Adam's words didn't seem to agitate Gansey any more than he already was. He clutched Adam's arm even more urgently. "No," he whispered. "You don't get it. I made this. I made us. You and me and Ronan and Noah and Blue."

"It's not a bad thing, Gansey," Adam said softly. "You didn't make a bad thing." He thought he knew where this was going, but he didn't want to be right.

"Are you happy, Adam?" Gansey asked. He stared up at Adam, fear and self-loathing etched on his face.

"You know the answer to that," Adam said, the words barely audible.

Gansey looked down at his feet, at the red tie snaked along the snow. "I'm going to make it worse," he said.

It was the voice on the tape recorder. Lost. Defeated.

Adam remembered, after Blue had bit her lip and stared at her feet and finally, finally admitted that yes, Gansey was going to die. He had gone back to Monmouth and torn the place apart until he wrapped his fingers around the tape recorder. He listened to Gansey's voice on it a dozen times, a hundred, a thousand.

_"Gansey."_

_"Is that all?"_

_"That's all there is."_

"Adam, I don't want to do this to you."

_He knows, he knows, he knows._

"I brought us together and now I'm going to-"

_He knows he's going to die._

"Oh god, Adam, what do I-" Gansey's voice broke. His eyes were bright in the dark. "What do I do?" he whispered helplessly.

"You stay," Adam said. He knew it was childish, that he couldn't control fate any more than he could control the trajectory of the earth. If the women of 300 Fox Way couldn't do anything, then what could five teenagers do to stop the future from happening?

"It's not that easy?" Gansey shouted. He flung his head back to the stars. "It's not that fucking easy!"

For some reason, it was Gansey swearing that finally brought everything crashing down. "Gansey..." Adam said, his throat choked with the immensity of it all.

Gansey lurched a little and sat down on the ground with a thud. Adam sank down next to him.

"I've been trying to ignore it," he said. "But being here made me..." he trailed off. "Helen doesn't know. She won't know until it happens." It was the 'it' that hurt the most. They couldn't even bring themselves to say the words out loud. "I can't warn her. Or my parents."

Adam remembered with a sudden sick feeling that Ronan didn't know either. But Ronan, if they chose to, they could warn. Helen Gansey, however, wasn't one for fanciful things like ley lines that foretold one's death. Helen Gansey was happy tonight. And by the end of the year, she wouldn't be. None of them would be.

"Should I be more worried for myself?" Gansey asked, a little drunkenly. "All I can think about is who I'm going to..."

_Leave behind_ , Adam thought.  _You're leaving us all behind_.

"What do I do?" Gansey asked again. He sounded so fragile. Adam didn't know what to tell him. He didn't know what to tell himself. Gansey was supposed to be the anchor, the voice of reason. Adam didn't have experience with this.

"For now?" he asked. Gansey closed his eyes.

"For now will do," he said. He looked exhausted.

"For now we do this," Adam said. He leaned over and pressed his lips to Gansey's. Gansey tasted like tequila and snow, his lips dry and cold. Gansey reached up to wind his fingers in Adam's hair and kissed him back. 

Adam didn't know how long he'd wanted to do this.

When Gansey pulled away, Adam felt his heart drop at a thousand miles an hour.

"I'm sorry," he stuttered. "I-"

"Shh," Gansey said, his eyes closed. "I want to remember this."

"Maybe this will help you remember," Adam said, and he kissed Gansey again.

"Maybe," Gansey muttered against Adam's lips. "Maybe it will."

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from unsteady by x ambassadors, which kind of inspired this fic.
> 
> find me on tumblr at gansiiy
> 
> thanks to aleclightwoodvevo and poedameroms for betaing ily both <33


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